Tuesday, June 04, 2013

CYBERNETIC IMMORTALITY

“…scientists are taking tiny,
incremental steps toward melding humans and machine all the time. Ray Kurzweil,
the futurist and now Google’s director of engineering, argued in “The
Singularity Is Near,” a 2005 book, that technology is advancing exponentially
and that ‘human life will be irreversibly transformed’ to the point that there will be no difference
between ‘human and machine or between physical and virtual reality.’”

A little taste of this is happening
right now before our eyes, and perhaps soon, inside of our minds.

3-D is not something new, but it is
becoming more and more sophisticated, and like TV and RADIO, 3D will also
become mainstream and commonplace.

Google glasses are only a first step
in a tall staircase of wonders (or blunders?) to come.

Electronic Miniaturization is
happening at lightning speed.

The trash heaps and recycle
factories can’t keep up with it all.

*

“At the Swarm Lab, Peter
Ledochowitsch, a researcher with a thick red beard, described a minimally
invasive brain implant designed to read intentions from the surface of the
brain. So far, the device has been implanted in an anesthetized rat; a
prototype for alert animals is in the works. But eventually, he said, it would
allow paralyzed people to communicate, or to control a robotic arm or a
wheelchair. It could also allow you to start your car if you think, ‘Start my
car.’”

I think, therefore I am?

No, I think, and it happens!

This reminds me of the alleged
reports where one of the tribes of aliens can read our minds.

Yeah, sure.

*

“‘Look at this,’ he (Dmitry Itskov) said, opening his laptop on the table and
starting a slide show with one heartbreaking statistic after another: Almost
one billion people are now starving. Forty-nine countries are currently
involved in military conflict. Ten percent of people are disabled. And so on.”

“‘That is the picture of this world
that we created, with the minds we have today, with our set of values, with our
egotism, our selfishness, our aggression,’ he went on. ‘Most of the world is
suffering. What we’re doing here does not look like the behavior of grown-ups.
We’re killing the planet and killing ourselves.’”

How long have philosophers moaned
about how terrible we are as humans (monsters?)?

But has this moaning ever changed
anything?

Prophets are always shot or hung.

El Diablo seems to have the upper
hand.

*

“TO change that picture, he reasons,
we must change our minds, or give them a chance to evolve,’ to use one of his
favorite words. Before our minds can evolve, though, we need a new paradigm of
what it means to be human. That requires a transition to a world where most
people aren’t consumed by the basic questions of survival.”